As the Internet becomes integrated into almost every aspect of people's lives, the amount of content available is growing at an exponential rate. It is common for web providers to operate databases with petabytes of data, while leading content providers are already looking toward technology to handle exabyte implementations.
In addition, the tools used to access this vast resource are growing ever more sophisticated. Although users may believe that they are simply logging into a website, sophisticated server software may search through vast data stores of data to gather information relating to the users, for example based on their browsing history, preferences, data access permissions, location, demographics, etc. Simultaneously, the server may build a custom viewing experience for the users, e.g., using server-side languages. The result is often a fully interactive, media rich user experience. What information is analyzed and/or presented can be a function of various policies, e.g., data access policies, privacy policies, optimization policies, etc. (collectively, “policies”). Some of these policies are defined by software developers whereas other data can be provided by users.
These policies can be useful in social networking websites, e.g., to determine what advertising or other content to display to users, what actions users can take, etc. Analysis of all of the relevant policies to determine what subset of data to analyze and present can take considerable time. However, users can demand that this process occur with no perceptible delays, failing which they may simply navigate to a different web site. Therefore, determining what content will be gathered and how it may be presented is desirable to reduce web site delays caused by analyzing policies.